I was flipping through an issue of GQ Magazine (the one with Robert Pattinson on the cover) while getting my haircut, when I happened upon an article entitled, "The Unspeakable Choice by Wil S. Hylton." I was drawn in by the deck: "Last summer, the state of Nebraska made it legal to abandon a child. Then the children started flooding in--eleven a day at one point, from all over the country." According to the article, people were coming as far away as California and Florida to leave their children at "safe havens" in Nebraska, and that under the new law, they could not be prosecuted for doing so.

While created to protect young mothers from leaving newborns in dumpsters, these were not the parents who were taking advantage of this new law. It turned out that many of the children who were abandoned had mental illnesses, and that many of the parents saw this solution as the only way that their child might get help (because their insurance didn't cover treatment, or because they didn't have the means).

This article surprised me. Firstly, because I didn't know that it was ever OK to leave your children (Texas, where I reside, just happens to be another state that protects parents), and that so many parents were driving so far in order to do this. It made me wonder, of course, what type of parent would do such a thing. Sure, there have been times when I was so annoyed with my children, that the thought entered my mind, but I could never bring myself to actually do that. The article also made me ponder whether these parents were lazy and/or neglegent, or if this was their cry for help.